


Adrift

by halcyonhowl (foxmoon)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Nightmares, Outer Space, Pining, Romance, Spooning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-17 23:22:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16983753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmoon/pseuds/halcyonhowl
Summary: Being adrift in space will mess with your head. It isn't easy for the mind to let go of such an experience. Lance deals with a nightmare, and Allura is there to comfort him.





	Adrift

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this just before season 7 aired and found it in my drafts. Was able to finish it before s8!

Lance clung desperately to the outer hull of the coalition’s Galra battleship with his fellow paladins as it rattled with explosions. Jagged sheets of metal ripped past them and out to space, sparks trailing in their wake. His paladin armor protected him from the heat of the blasts, but each shockwave made it harder and harder to hang on. He sensed a movement to his left. A shape that was there, now gone. Pidge had let go. Her fearful expression burned into his mind as she fell away into the darkness. Another tremor rocked through the ship. One by one, they all lost their hold. 

Lance floated momentarily before the force of a final, massive explosion violently pushed him further away. The remainder of the ship maintained its previous course from sheer inertia, like one lost to the sea, sinking and sinking into a black abyss. Sendak’s battleship tipped into hyperdrive and was gone as swiftly as it had arrived. Lance tore his attention away to locate each of his friends. They were all adrift, too far apart to be reached, but within sight. Allura, at least, was close enough so that he could use just a little of what propulsion he had left in his jetpack to grasp her and pull her towards himself.

“Lance!” she cried as she grappled for him clumsily, the lack of gravity and unpredictable eddies of force from the explosions making it difficult. She maneuvered against inertia with her jetpack so they wouldn’t find themselves on a never-ending course through the vacuum of space. 

“I’ve got you! You’re okay!”

With just a few more adjustments, at last he held her in his arms. Even through their space suits, he could feel her shaking. Or maybe that was him. He pulled out a tether from his suit and connected it to hers, just in case.

Allura rested against him, and waited until her breath had calmed before she spoke again. “Where are the others?” 

“I see them, but I don’t have enough power to reach them.”

“Same here. In fact, my entire suit is on powersave mode. That is most dire; they’re designed to only need to use this mode under the most extreme circumstances.” 

He double checked his own. “Yep. Communications and vital support only. That was some weapon.”

“I can’t believe this. They got the lions! The bayards. After everything… What are we going to do now? I’m not going to let us just die out here like this.”

“You won’t. We’ll think of something.” He looked off towards the other paladins, only visible by the glowing emblems on their space suits.  “Hey guys, d’ya hear me? Everyone all right?”

Static followed, and at last Hunk’s voice came through. “Yeah, and no I don’t feel so hot.”

“For once I can say the same,” said Pidge.

“I’m here,” responded Keith. “Shiro?”

“Yes.” Shiro replied. “Glad we’re all okay and accounted for. Pidge, what is our technical status?”

“We need to save our power cells. It’s a good thing you took that guy out when you did, Lance. He could’ve rendered our suits completely useless. As it is, I used almost all of mine to fight inertia. Presumably we all did, so just stay put for now. More pertinent--we probably have about 5 hours, er, vargas of oxygen--”

“Not this again,” Lance cut in.

“Yeah, we’re in space, it comes with the territory,” said Hunk, followed by a dry heave. 

“I’m scanning for any nearby ships,” continued Pidge, “but I don’t have enough power to boost the range. It’s possible if we each scan a different sector we can cover more ground.”

Once the paladins sorted out how they would do just that, they all fell quiet. Talking used up oxygen, and conserving it was a matter of life and death. Lance thanked the space gods that Allura had wound up so close to him, but privately hoped that the power he used to reach her wouldn’t make the difference between whether or not he survived. A jab of panic turned his stomach, then he realised Allura was staring at him curiously.

“Hi,” he said. Of course, accompanied by a goofy smile. He couldn’t help it when she looked at him like that.

Her eyes softened and she almost smiled in return. “We should be careful not to talk too much.”

“Right.”

Lance focused on Allura to keep his jumbled thoughts from driving himself crazy in the silence that followed. Her eyes were closed. Her lips slightly parted as she worked to control her breathing. Hair stuck to her skin beneath her helmet. Up close, her Altean marks fascinated him even more. They seemed part of her skin, but beneath it at the same time. Were they soft like the back of her hand? Warm to the touch? Were they sensitive?  Would he see pink flecks of light in her eyes if they glowed? With every question, his heart ached more. There were an infinite number of things to love about her, if only he could offer the same in return.

Eventually she sagged a little more into him as she drifted off to sleep. Her face rolled toward his chest, but her arms never loosened their hold on him. Sleep threatened to overcome him as well, but he fought it to keep an eye on her breathing. He started with his earliest memory--walking up to his older brother with four little fingers held proudly upward.

_ ¡Tengo cuatro años! _

And that was it. A pretty lame first memory to be honest. Hunk’s was way better. 

His next memory was a bit more difficult to pin down with an accurate age. It was night, and his neighbor friends had dared him to stand in front of the forest for ten minutes without getting scared and running away. One of them had given him a big rock and said to throw it in the forest if something tries to attack. Then they all left on their bikes. He stood there listening to the chorus of night creatures, fear curling like a fern in his chest. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, felt like forever, but they never came back. Instead, he gave the rock a good hurl into the forest and heard it thud against the earth. Then he ran like mad to his bike and not once looked back as he pedaled furiously toward his home. 

These memories and more helped keep him alert, until he looked out and noticed that he and Allura were alone. Somehow they had drifted farther away from the rest. 

“Shiro?” he called. “Hunk? Anyone hear me?”

No response. He looked all around himself. Nothing but distant stars out there. He returned his attention to Allura, but she had also vanished. Gone from his arms without so much as a whisper of sensation.

“Allura?!”

He spun, flailed, she was nowhere. Nowhere at all. 

“Allura!”

Then the whole universe tilted around himself. His brain told him he was falling, but he couldn’t be, not in space. 

_ “Lance!”  _

He swung as if by gravity towards the sound.  _ Allura was okay. Allura was there. _ Brightness swam into his field of vision, and then her worried face. Her hair fell around him, free of a helmet, mussed from sleep. He stared up into her concerned eyes as he shed the last tendrils of the nightmare. 

“I’m here, it’s okay,” she soothed. She leaned in to kiss his forehead. “You’re safe in bed. On Earth.”

He sat up, heart gradually easing down from its rapid pace. He reached for her in relief and joy. “Allura.”

She wrapped her arms around him and nuzzled his neck. “Was it the lost in space nightmare again?”

“Yeah,” he said, breathy, still a bit riled up. 

Her embrace tightened around him. “Would you like me to see if Hunk’s up to making waffles? I know that’ll help you feel better.”

Lance hummed and kissed along her bare shoulder. Waffles would be killer right about now, but so would--

“Or you could lie back down and I’ll spoon you for a bit.” 

That. 

She lifted his head up, cradling his face in her hands so she could level a tempting gaze at him. He looked away with a bashful smile. 

“I thought so,” she said, capping the offer with a kiss. 

He melted into the blankets with his back to her. She lined up her body against and draped an arm over his waist. Her warmth and scent enveloped him. A little swoop went through his stomach when she wedged her toes between his calves.

“I’ll still want waffles,” he drawled, scooting back against her more snugly.

“You are spoiled absolutely rotten.”

“Nah, just lucky.”


End file.
